Riding The Roller Coaster

Consistently inconsistent.

It’s something you hear a lot of in sports. Sometimes it’s just members of the media and people like me who have too much time on their hands and not enough things to write. But in the case of Liverpool’s 2012-13 season it’s pretty darn accurate.

Saturday’s 5-0 win over Swansea was just their second over a team in the top half of the table this season. It also came on the heels of a 2-0 defeat to Zenit Saint Petersburg in Russia in the first leg of their Round of 32 Europa League match. Luis Suarez (who had another fantastic performance Sunday) went into Sunday having scored 13 of his league goals against clubs in the bottom half and just four against those who reside in the top half. Manager Brendan Rodgers seems to be doing the exact opposite of Kenny Dalglish last season. The latter’s team struggled against the bottom dwellers and thrived against the top while the former continues to beat up said dwellers and struggled against his toughest competition. It’s a testament to their two styles really. Dalglish was all about motivating his players properly but had no sense of tactics while Brendan Rodgers is on the brink of a significant culture shift at Anfield in terms of his tactics, but fails to get the best of his players in the most crucial of matches.

You could even extend the analogy to a fringe player like Jose Enrique. The Spanish left back scored on Sunday, but has been wildly inconsistent this season and has led some to believe he needs replacing. Daniel Sturridge got off to a hot start but has since cooled. Philippe Coutinho scored a clever goal in his first league start, but obviously more time will be needed to evaluate him.

And with all of that being said, Liverpool STILL find themselves just nine points away from a Top 4 finish. Hell, even in the Europa League group stage their results were inconsistent and they managed to advance on a tiebreaker. It’s absolutely maddening trying to figure out if they are any good. And we probably won’t for the rest of the season. If they make a run and finish Top 4, we’ll all say they’re not THAT good and if they stumble and finish 8th or 9th we’ll scratch our heads and wonder how they wound up there.

So don’t expect to find out any more about this team for the rest of the season. And if you think you know one way or the other…just know that you’re wrong.

 

“Walk on with hope in your heart and you’ll never walk alone!”